I'm puzzled by something...Bass guitar cabinets are expected to reproduce frequencies down to 42 Hz, in the case of four-string basses, and well below that for 5 and 6-string basses. Yet when I look up the specs on, for instance, Eminence bass guitar drivers, their F3 is generally well above that, and the suggested vented cabinet designs begin to exhibit a system rolloff often even higher than the F3 of the driver. I was just looking at one particular Eminence driver whose F3 was at 66 Hz, yet this is a popular bass guitar driver. The suggested vented cabinet design for this driver exhibits a frequency response curve that's about -18 dB at 40 Hz., and the -3 dB point is above 60 Hz.I'm having a difficult time figuring out how this can sound good as a bass guitar speaker system. Is there something 'psychoacoustic' involved here....or what? Shouldn't I shoot for a response curve that's down no more than 3 dB at the lowest frequency I want to produce thru my cabinet?I have a combo bass amp which I've 'reverse-engineered' to find the cabinet's port tuning, and come up with about 55 Hz, and this with a 15" driver in it. Yet, it sounds very solid right on down to the low 'E' (42 Hz). How is this possible?

In the real rock & Roll world it is often a war over loudness.Electric guitar and drums have a distinct advantage for getting loud with little input.Typical lead electric guitar can take 30 watts to 100watts and over power the rest of the stage volume down to 100Hz after which it is no longer audible.To get to the same level at 40Hz will require a van load of power amps and very large full range and sub woofers.

If you get 60Hz (flat) out of a bass guitar rig it will cost a fortune and will not fit on a night club stage.

Oh, I'm not talking about BUYING such a rig...I'm just trying to figure out how a bass cab that is port-tuned only down to about 60 Hz can seem to crank out that 42 Hz low 'E'. I mean, you can hear it very well, but according to the tuning of the cabinet, it ain't supposed to be there.As an experiment, I built a 1x12" cabinet. 1.5 cu. ft.. with a 3" port tuning it at the (hi-fi) driver's F3 of 40 Hz. It does indeed work big-time at 42 Hz, without a doubt...but somehow it lacks any real 'punch' that you get at 60-80 Hz in the usual bass cab. I'm just wondering if there's not something psychoacoustic going on with these 60-Hz-tuned cabinets that only makes you THINK you can hear that 42 Hz fundamental. Maybe I should just get hold of one of those drivers and build a box tuned to its F3 and see how that sounds to my ears.

Even if they can't produce the fundamental note, humans can reconstruct the fundamental note in their brains even though they didn't really hear it. Voice recognition on a telephone is a good example of this ability.